CAIRO— A poet and activist hit with a blast of birdshot from a police shotgun during a march to lay flowers in Cairo’s Tahrir Square died because she was too thin, according to a spokesman for Egypt’s medical examiner.

Shaimaa el-Sabbagh, was killed Jan. 24, a day before the anniversary of Egypt’s Arab Spring revolt in 2011. Riot police officers blasted the marchers with tear gas and birdshot at close range as photographers and cameramen watched. Their haunting images of Ms. el-Sabbagh dying in the arms of another marcher have made her a symbol of the epidemic of police abuse.

But Hisham Abdel Hamid, spokesman for the Medical Forensics Authority, the 31-year-old woman would not have died had she not been so slender.

“Shaimaa el-Sabbagh, according to science, should not have died,” he said in a television interview, calling it “a very rare case.”

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“Her body was like skin over bone, as they say,” he said. “She was very thin. She did not have any percentage of fat. So the small pellets penetrated very easily, and four or five out of all the pellets that penetrated her body — these four or five pellets were able to penetrate her heart and lungs, and these are the ones that caused her death.”

A chubbier person would have survived with only minor injuries, the spokesman argued, noting a man standing next to her was hit in the neck, but nonetheless lived.

“Under his skin, he had layers of fat and I don’t know what else that were a bit thick, so he wasn’t penetrated,” Abdel Hamid said. “Praise the Lord, it was her time.”

He said that most of the pellets were concentrated in a 50-centimetre-wide area of Ms. el-Sabbagh’s back, but two others hit the left side of her face. The blasts appeared to have been fired from a distance of about seven metrs, he said.

AP Photo/Amr Nabil, FileIn this Thursday, Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, an Egyptian protester holds a poster of Shaimaa el-Sabbagh, an activist who was shot dead at a small peaceful protest, with Arabic that reads, "how many martyrs remaining for victory," during a women's protest in Cairo.

Rights groups scoffed at the focus on the victim’s weight.

“These sorts of ridiculous claims just add a thick layer of absurdity to the government’s endless record of killings and impunity,” said Sarah Leah Whitson of Human Rights Watch.

The images of Ms. el-Sabbagh’s killing resonated so widely Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the Egyptian president, called for an investigation. Public prosecutors said recently they had referred an unnamed police officer to trial on charges of battery leading to death, a form of manslaughter.

Prosecutors also said they were charging her fellow marchers with participating in an unauthorized demonstration under strict restrictions on street protests passed after the military takeover here in 2013. Both crimes carry similar penalties of up to several years in prison.

Boko Haram attacks in northern Nigeria have dominated African headlines since the Islamist militants kidnapped over 200 girls in Chibok in April 2014. But there is a lesser known group of rebels, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), who have been intimidating the local population, albeit on a different scale, in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for over 20 years.

The international community has long sought to demobilize the FDLR, a Hutu group led by former “genocidaires” who fled to the DRC following the Rwandan genocide of around 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. The FDLR has few friends. But the dense forests of North and South Kivu provinces in the eastern DRC provide the perfect cover for it and other rebel groups to maintain territorial control over lucrative mining operations in coltan, gold and other minerals.

The United Nations Security Council, the United States, South Africa and other global actors have ramped up the pressure to disarm the FDLR, and the rebels were given six months ahead of a January 2 deadline to voluntarily disarm as part of the UN’s demobilization program. This date was largely ignored, however, as only 337 old and infirm members surrendered, leaving an estimated 1,500 remaining FDLR combatants.

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This appeared to be the perfect moment of action for the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade (FIB), a military formation of South African, Tanzanian and Malawian troops under UN control with the unique mandate to carry out attacks on rebel groups in the eastern DRC. The idea behind the FIB was to avoid the kinds of peacekeeping disasters of the mid-1990s, when UN forces in Rwanda and Bosnia were only allowed to use force in self-defence, as genocidal acts were committed by ethnic Hutu militias and Bosnian Serb fighters while the world watched. Moreover, the FIB and Congolese forces had successfully routed Rwandan-backed M23 rebels from strongholds in North Kivu in November 2013. Based on this precedent, it seemed that the FDLR’s days were numbered at last.

However, on Feb. 1, DRC President Joseph Kabila appointed General Bruno Mandevu to lead the FDLR operation and General Fall Sikabwe as commander of the 34th military region which includes North Kivu. Both generals were on a UN “red list” for suspected human rights violations, although details about their alleged crimes have not been disclosed. Kabila’s continuing refusal to replace the generals prompted the UN to suspend its support to the operation. Amidst the deepening rift between Kabila and the UN, the Congolese military launched a unilateral offensive against FDLR rebels on Feb. 24, one day after the African Union had called on Kabila to accept UN support.

Without much in the way of independent information beyond the Congolese military reports, it will be difficult to assess the early reports of successful attacks on FDLR positions

Senior UN and diplomatic sources in the DRC have expressed their lack of faith in this unilateral operation, particularly given the fact that the FDLR are likely to avoid direct military confrontations. The badly-paid Congolese army suffers from low morale, poor discipline, and lack of special forces training to combat seasoned guerrilla fighters like the FDLR, particularly in the rugged terrain that has been the rebels’ home for 20 years. Moreover, as DRC expert Jason Stearns has argued, that there is no “exit valve” for FDLR commanders. There is a well-established UN demobilization program for low-level combatants, but only some ad hoc arrangements for individual commanders. This further entrenches the resolve of senior leaders, who hold sway over their fighters through the group’s religious ideology and a strict hierarchical command structure.

Furthermore, any attack on the FDLR risks a repeat of 2009, when over a million civilians in the Kivus were displaced by Congolese and Rwandan troops, and retreating FDLR fighters massacred villagers as a deterrent to the international community. Without the UN to attend to the humanitarian aspects of such a displacement, and to provide oversight of Congolese troops with a history of human rights abuses, it is the civilians who will bear the brunt of the fighting.

Without much in the way of independent information beyond the Congolese military reports, it will be difficult to assess the early reports of successful attacks on FDLR positions, as well as the impact on civilians. After violent anti-Kabila demonstrations in January left an estimated 43 protesters dead amidst widespread criticism of the heavy-handed tactics by security force, the Congolese leader is keen to demonstrate his ability to unilaterally defeat the FDLR and improve his domestic and international standing. However, in this volatile mineral-rich region that has been plagued by rebel violence for the past 20 years, the pattern of rebel attacks and ill-fated counterinsurgency operations is likely to continue.

National Post

Alex Fielding is a senior intelligence analyst specializing in African affairs with Max Security Solutions, a geopolitical risk consulting firm based in the Middle East. He previously worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/alex-fielding-africas-forgotten-butchers-the-democratic-forces-for-the-liberation-of-rwanda/feed/1stdDRCONGO-UNREST-REBELSfbMugabe marks 91st birthday with supporters saying they will back him for full term until 2018http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-marks-91st-birthday-with-supporters-saying-they-will-back-him-for-full-term-until-2018
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/mugabe-marks-91st-birthday-with-supporters-saying-they-will-back-him-for-full-term-until-2018#commentsSat, 21 Feb 2015 15:06:47 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=704020

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe turns 91 on Saturday, with his supporters saying they will back him to run his full term until 2018 and beyond despite nagging questions about his health and an economy that is crumbling under his watch.

Mugabe’s recent fall at Harare Airport fuelled renewed speculation that old age is catching up with the man who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The spry Mugabe, however, succeeded in breaking his fall and apparently was not injured. His officials say he is in good health.

In addition to being in power in Zimbabwe, this year Mugabe is also chairman of the 54-nation African Union and the 15-nation Southern African Development Community.

Low key events marked Saturday’s birthday but lavish celebrations are planned next Saturday (Feb. 28) in the resort town of Victoria Falls. Those celebrations will be held by the 21st February Movement, the group that has planned Mugabe’s birthday celebrations since 1986. Members of Mugabe’s ruling paty, ZANU-PF, say they are raising more than $1 million for the festivities.

The celebrations are leaving a sour taste in the mouth for some Zimbabweans battling to survive under economic deterioration that has led to company closures, massive unemployment and successive food shortages.

Zimbabwe’s once prosperous economy took a severe knock in 2000 when Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms. Allegations of vote-rigging and violence in elections that year brought the United States and the European Union to impose travel and financial sanctions on Mugabe, his inner circle and some state institutions and firms.

An empowerment law forcing foreigners to sell at least 51 percent of their shareholding to government-approved black Zimbabweans has scared investors, said economist John Robertson. Mugabe’s “Look East” policy encouraging Chinese investment has failed to stabilize the economy, he said.

“The celebrations show what has gone wrong in this country. Only those close to Mugabe feast while the rest of us starve. Look around, everyone is now a vendor,” said John Ratambwa, an unemployed 23-year old Harare resident. “At 91 one has to rest. Ninety-one years is too old an age to lead a vast country like Zimbabwe,” he said in downtown Harare, whose sidewalks now teem with people selling wares.

The African Development Bank says 65 percent of Zimbabweans now rely on the informal sector for survival due to the decline in industry. Mugabe’s government in the past year has struggled to pay its workers.

Mugabe won disputed elections in 2013 and his supporters say they want him to contest the 2018 elections at 94.

Nelson Chamisa, an opposition legislator, said Mugabe should hand over the baton. “I would equate what ZANU-PF is doing to abuse of the elderly,” he said. “He needs to rest. Even our constitution stipulates that we have an oblation to take care of our elderly. Look at what happened at the airport, a very embarrassing situation.”

Mugabe’s wife Grace, 42 years his junior, has recently become prominent in Zimbabwe’s politics. At this week’s ZANU-PF politburo meeting she sat next to Mugabe in the seat previously taken by ousted vice president Joice Mujuru. Grace Mugabe is secretary for women’s affairs in the politburo.

Didymus Mutasa, who worked with Mugabe since the 1960s until he was fired from his presidential ministerial position last year and from the party this week for allegedly plotting to oust Mugabe, said Grace is now the power behind the throne.

“Grace has effectively taken over,” he said. “Power now revolves around her and this is sad because she is inexperienced and will cause more damage.”

Supa Mandiwanzira, the minister for Information and Communications Technology, said Mugabe is still in charge.

“I sit in cabinet every Tuesday with the president, he is totally, fully in charge,” he said, dismissing criticism of Mugabe’s birthday festivities.

“The celebrations are worth every cent. This is an icon we are talking about,” said Mandiwanzira. “He is pushing for the empowerment of blacks through the land reform program and the indigenization policy.”

In 2011, when the Arab Spring sounded promising and Muammar Gaddafi, the dictator of Libya, was killing the scattered forces rebelling against him, the West decided he had to go. A NATO force, which included the United States and Canada, dropped enough bombs to defeat Gaddafi’s army. The triumphant rebels killed him.

When that happened, U.S. President Barack Obama predicted “a new and democratic Libya.” This week, British Prime Minister David Cameron said he doesn’t regret ousting Gaddafi, because “it was the right thing to do.”

In truth it turned out to be a tragedy created by good intentions. The main result has been chaos — four years of chaos, with the prospect of more to come.

Libya is a failed state ruled by two opposing forces: The official government, based in Tobruk, and a rebel element, Libya Dawn, in Tripoli. Mohammed Al-Dairi, the foreign minister of the official government, recently said that after 2011 the West left his country “prey” to extremists. And he was right: ISIS, the most flagrantly murderous force on the planet, has moved in.

Last summer, ISIS envoys arrived in Libya to open a new front, co-opting jihadists who had been aligned with Al-Qaeda. Soon the new branch became aggressive. One gang stormed the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli, killing nine people. Another killed nine guards in an attack on an oil field.

Last Sunday black-masked ISIS soldiers led 21 Coptic Christians to their deaths near the Libyan coastal town of Sirte. Recorded on videotape, they forced the Copts to lie on the sand, pinned them down, pulled their heads back by sticking fingers in their eyes, then sliced their throats with knives.

Though the ancestors of the murdered Copts may well have lived in the region before the birth of Islam, the killers called them “crusaders,” as if they were foreign invaders. A website, Voice of the Copts, commented: “Living under constant threat of a hate-driven and blood-thirsty Islam, Copts of Egypt have learned to expect anything.”

The Copts were Egyptians who had come to Libya in search of work. In retaliation, Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who boasts that “there are no religious minorities in Egypt,” launched bombing strikes on ISIS targets in the Libyan town of Derna (where ISIS has imposed Shariah law). The revenge bombing killed more than 40 people.

Opening a new front in Libya is costly for ISIS, in lives as well as resources. Their purpose is stated clearly in the video that ISIS put online: One of the jihadis points to the north and threatens, “We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission.”

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A document said to be from ISIS, and obtained by a British private security firm, outlines a plan of attack. Being close to southern Italy, Libya can become the ISIS gateway to Europe. According to the document, jihadists from Syria and Iraq will assemble in Libya. They will pose as illegal migrants on people-trafficking boats making the short journey to the island of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost point. Once in Europe they will spread violence. The ISIS memo says, “The southern Crusader states can be reached with ease.” In fact, last year 170,000 illegals made that journey, many thousands of them Syrians.

In Washington this week, international representatives met in a three-day conference at the State Department on fighting terrorism. They heard President Obama’s argument that the way forward involves broadening human rights and putting “an end to the cycle of hate.”

It’s unlikely that this gentle admonition will touch the hearts of ISIS warriors. They are an enemy like no other. They don’t care what the world thinks of them. In fact, they film themselves committing atrocities that would shame anyone else. They don’t care how many enemies they make: It probably pleased them that they recently added Jordan and Egypt to the list. They nourish their spirit with bizarre dreams of reviving the caliphate and conquering the world. Defeating them will be a monumental task, requiring a will as powerful as their own.

They are running a recruiting campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #ImmigrationtotheIslamicStateinLibya. One tweeter, claiming to be part of ISIS, wrote: “Hurry up and guarantee your place in the frontline and on the gateway to the conquest of Rome, with Allah’s help.” Another wrote: “Your state has been established. Your Caliph has summoned you. When will you answer the call?” According to the Middle East Media Research Institute, responses increased after the release of the video showing the massacre of the Copts.

BAGA SOLA, Chad — Women and children, limp with exhaustion, were the first to disembark from the ancient wooden barge. Then came the men, splashing their way through shallow water.

In the next few minutes, 86 tense and bewildered people stumbled ashore on the eastern edge of Lake Chad. They were following in the footsteps of 17,000 Nigerian refugees who have already fled to Chad. Behind them, on the far side of the lake, lay the domain of Boko Haram.

This bloodstained Islamist movement is advancing remorselessly, inflicting a human calamity on one of Africa’s most remote regions. Boko Haram now dominates the Nigerian shore of this verdant oasis on the southern fringe of the Sahara, pillaging and burning entire towns at will.

Nigeria’s army, outgunned and outfought, has lost control of thousands of square kilometres, abandoning locals to their fate. Almost 180,000 have responded by fleeing to neighbouring countries.

Most have gone to Niger, Cameroon and Chad. Friday, the Islamists invaded Chad for the first time, attacking Ngouboua, a village about 16 kilometres from the border.

STEPHANE YAS/AFP/Getty ImagesA picture taken on Feb. 13, 2015 shows the village Nougboua after it was attacked by Nigeria's Boko Haram rebels.

In Baga Sola, Shamsia Umaru, 13, stepped ashore clasping her baby sister, Fatima, and her four-year-old brother, Yahya. But they arrived without their father.

“It was Boko Haram who killed him,” Shamsia said.

The family lived in Doron Baga, a Nigerian fishing town largely destroyed by the Islamists in early January. They fled to the lakeside village of Toumbouyashi, but Boko Haram followed.

The village was helpless and undefended, so the insurgents faced no opposition when they rounded up all the men.

“They asked ’Who is from Baga or Doron Baga’?” said Shamsia.

These neighbouring towns were captured and torched the same day. Later, Abubakar Shekau, the Boko Haram leader, released a video boasting how his fighters had “killed the people of Baga.”

He appears to be pursuing a vendetta against the men of both towns, perhaps because some created a vigilante militia that inflicted heavy losses on Boko Haram.

Shamsia’s father, Danladi Umaru, and eight others were identified as being from Doron Baga. They were shot dead on the spot.

“Boko Haram left, but they said they would come back, so we took the chance to run,” added Shamsia. Her mother, Adama, gathered the children and they left on a week-long journey to Chad.

The testimony of the refugees who have witnessed Boko Haram’s atrocities helps to paint a picture of the methods of Africa’s deadliest Islamist insurgents.

Nasiru Saidu, 43, a trader, said even before the Doron Baga raid, he knew of Boko Haram’s methods through bitter experience.

Last June, the gunmen raided a village where his brother, Qassem, lived. They carried away his brother’s wife and their four sons.

Mr. Saidu fears the boys will be brainwashed and turned into child soldiers. “I think they are going to recruit them. That is what we know they do with young boys. They are raping the women and they are taking the young boys to their camps and teaching them everything about what they are doing.”

SIA KAMBOU/AFP/Getty ImagesNigerian refugee children carry wood in a United Nations Refugee Agency camp in Baga Sola by Lake Chad.

When Boko Haram capture a town, the fate of its people rests on whether or not they resist. Those who put up a fight can expect nothing but pitiless massacre.

Those who succumb are treated differently. The gunmen generally assemble residents and announce their home has become part of the new “Islamic Caliphate” they are building across Africa.

Then, people are divided into groups. Young men and boys are often taken away for indoctrination and training. Girls are likely to be carried off to be sex slaves for fighters, while women become domestic servants. Middle-aged men run the greatest risk of being summarily killed.

The women and girls are effectively enslaved, said Mr. Saidu. “They are just used as things.”

For those who escape such fates, life under Boko Haram’s rule is one of hardship and hunger. So far, the movement has not tried to build a government in the territory it holds, nor establish a judicial system to enforce the rigour of Shariah.

SIA KAMBOU/AFP/Getty ImagesNigeria’s army has lost control of thousands of square kilometres to Boko Haram terrorists, leaving residents to their fate. Nearly 180,000 Nigerians have fled to neighbouring countries, most Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

But it has suffocated the ways by which people earn their livelihoods. The economy of north-eastern Nigeria has traditionally rested on ancient trade routes running through Niger, Chad and the Sahara.

The war has now blocked these vital arteries. Once, goods were carried over the lake to Chad in a single day. Today, no one crosses the lake except for desperate refugees.

The only other way to travel from Nigeria to Chad is by a 1,600-kilometre route through Niger, a journey that can take a month. Even within Boko Haram’s domain, all movement is dangerous. Anyone found on the roads between towns is liable to be killed on sight.

“If you are going for three kilometres to buy your fish, you cannot do that,” said Mr Saidu. “If your fields are two or three kilometres away, you cannot go. They are just killing any people who they find.”

Suspected Boko Haram militants staged their first attack in Chad on Friday, hitting the third country outside their home base of Nigeria in recent days as the region beefs up its military response to the armed Muslim extremist group.

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The assault took place in the village of Ngouboua on the shore of Lake Chad early Friday, and left a community leader, one Chadian soldier and at least two militants dead, Chad’s military said.

Boko Haram has threated any nation contributing to the fight against them. The nation of Chad is contributing the most military muscle to the effort, with its soldiers already attacking the insurgents in the countries of Cameroon and Nigeria.

“The assailants have scattered and the army is now pursuing them,” Chad army Col. Azem Bermandoa Agouna told The Associated Press by telephone.

Ngouboua is already home to nearly 3,300 refugees who had fled Boko Haram-related violence back home in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. The U.N. refugee agency said Friday it had heard reports of the deadly violence there and was investigating.

“Security is a major concern for all humanitarian agencies, and for the refugees themselves,” the agency said Friday at a briefing in Geneva.

AFP PHOTO/BOKO HARAMIn this screen grab image taken on Feb. 9 from a video made available by Boko Haram, leader Abubakar Shekau makes a statement at an undisclosed location.

Boko Haram’s insurgency has forced some 157,000 people to seek refuge in Niger, while 40,000 others have gone to Cameroon and 17,000 are in Chad, the U.N. said. Almost 1 million Nigerians are internally displaced, according to the country’s own statistics.

Chad, Niger, Cameroon and Benin all have pledged to send military support though Chadian soldiers are already fighting Boko Haram militants inside Cameroon and Nigeria. The multinational force to fight Boko Haram is expected to be formally launched in coming weeks.

Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal.

STEPHANE YAS/AFP/Getty ImagesA file photo taken on Feb. 4 shows Chadian soldiers patrolling in the Nigerian border town of Gamboru after taking control of the city. Boko Haram on February 11 launched a pre-dawn raid in Gamboru, northeastern Nigeria, looking to overwhelm Chadian troops who had pushed them out of the border town.

Boko Haram has grabbed headlines around the world for recent outrages, including what may have been one of the worst terror attacks of the modern era and attacks using bombs strapped to girls, one perhaps as young as 10.

Little attention, however, is being paid to another humanitarian crisis spawned by Boko Haram: Tens of thousands of people have fled Nigeria into fragile, desperately poor neighbouring countries that are ill equipped to provide shelter. This influx of refugees is sowing the seeds of a prolonged humanitarian and security crisis.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that 135,000 Nigerians have fled into Cameroon, Chad and Niger to escape Boko Haram’s rampages. The Jan. 3 massacre in Baga, where as many as 2,000 people were killed, caused a surge in displacement. More than 12,000 people have fled to Chad since the attacks, including hundreds who were trapped for days on an island in Lake Chad.

Cameroon, Chad and Niger are struggling to cope with the influx of refugees. Cameroon already has nearly 200,000 refugees who fled unrest in the Central African Republic. Niger, an important U.S. ally that hosts a drone base, faced a food crisis in the Diffa region even before it took in more than 87,000 Nigerian refugees.

When refugees have no place to go, they form settlements wherever they start congregating, often in areas inadequate for hosting them. It is normally too difficult to relocate these settlements, so they turn into permanent camps, leaving their occupants to live in inhospitable environments.

Unplanned camps are often not far enough from conflict and become long-term sources of instability. Refugees may remain within reach of armed groups that find camps a convenient source of prey, recruits and succor. Boko Haram frequently conducts raids into neighbouring countries and has the ability to reach any camp near the border. The group would not hesitate to exploit the camps, strengthening itself at a time when the world should be rallying to defeat it.

While the immediate needs are critical, the world must also respond to this crisis as a long-term humanitarian and security problem and build the capacity to cope with future floods of refugees. Boko Haram is becoming more powerful and routinely humiliates an outmatched Nigerian army. Regional co-operation has thus far been stillborn, and the Nigerian government has rebuffed critical assistance offered by the United States. To complicate matters, national polls are scheduled for Feb. 14, and Nigeria has a history of violent elections. More refugees are certain to stream out of Nigeria.

Nigeria is a prickly partner that has largely frustrated the few international efforts made to fight Boko Haram, but acting quickly on the refugee crisis would not require Nigerian co-operation and would be an effective way for nations to join the battle. The UNHCR is asking for about $25 million, a rounding error in most developed countries’ budgets.

The United States and its allies should also lend their expertise to help Nigeria’s neighbours provide sufficient security to ensure that the camps do not become dangerous for refugees or a source of relief for Boko Haram. Humanitarian workers and the camps themselves will need military protection, and a strong police force will be necessary to keep order. Since it is impractical to monitor Nigeria’s long and porous borders, the United States should help Nigeria and its neighbours establish humanitarian corridors to protect and guide fleeing refugees while also providing security forces an opportunity to screen for militants moving with the refugees.

Boko Haram is a terrible threat to a fragile region. The international community — partly because of the Nigerian government’s profound insufficiencies — has thus far failed to treat it with the urgency it deserves. The refugee crisis and its humanitarian and security implications are yet another call to action that we cannot afford to ignore.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed responsibility for the mass killings in the northeast Nigerian town of Baga and threatened more violence.

As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the Jan. 3 attack on the town near Nigeria’s border with Cameroon, said Amnesty International.

The leader of Nigeria’s Islamic extremists took responsibility for the killings in a video posted on YouTube Tuesday, the same day International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she is examining the allegations of mass killings and will prosecute those most responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Nigeria.

“We are the ones who fought the people of Baga, and we have killed them with such a killing as He (Allah) commanded us in his book,” Shekau says, according to a translation from Arabic provided by SITE Intelligence Group.

The video shows weapons supposedly captured from a key military base at Baga.

“This is just the beginning of the killings. What you’ve just witnessed is a tip of the iceberg. More deaths are coming,” said Shekau in the local Hausa language.

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“This will mark the end of politics and democracy in Nigeria,” he warned as the country gears up for critical Feb. 14 presidential elections.

The attack on Baga has sparked international outrage not seen since Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 girls from a boarding school in April last year. Nigeria’s demoralized and ill-equipped military has failed to rescue the 219 who remain in captivity.

Neighbouring Cameroon has had more success in combating Boko Haram, this month retaking a seized military base and this week winning freedom for scores of abducted women and children.

AFP PHOTO/OLATUNJI OMIRINDisplaced people from Baga listen to President Goodluck Jonathan (unseen) in a Maiduguri camp on Jan. 15. Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan met survivors from what is thought to be Boko Haram's worst attack in its six-year insurgency.

In neighbouring Niger, regional foreign ministers Wednesday were negotiating how to establish a multinational force to fight the extremists.

Shekau taunts them in the video, saying “I’m ready” for any attacks.

Previous experience does not bode well. Baga was headquarters for a multinational force but Chad and Niger abruptly withdrew their troops without explanation and only Nigerians were there when Boko Haram struck, according to Nigeria’s military chief.

ACCRA, Ghana — All schools in Guinea will reopen on Monday after being closed amid the deadly Ebola outbreak, Guinea’s health minister said Friday.

Health minister Remy Lamah told The Associated Press in Accra, Ghana during a summit by the Economic Community of West African States that the action is being taken “because the situation has improved.”

In Liberia, the schools are reopening “next month,” said the Liberian Embassy’s Charges d’Affaires in Ghana, Musu Ruhle.

The developments mirror how Ebola is affecting the three hardest-hit nations. There have been gains against the virus, which is spread through contact with bodily fluids of a person showing symptoms, or of a corpse, in Guinea and Liberia, but the disease continues to spread in Sierra Leone.

“We are monitoring the situation and would take a decision after that,” said Sierra Leone Health Minister Foday Sawi Lahai. “We have imported thermometers to be used for surveillance in the schools. Once that is done and the number of cases keep falling, we would consider (reopening schools).”

In the most recent 24-hour monitoring period, 16 new Ebola cases were discovered in Sierra Leone, according to government figures.

At the summit in Ghana, member states were asked to set up Rapid Response Teams at national, district and regional levels as part of the preparedness and containment mechanisms against Ebola, ECOWAS said.

Also attending are the World Health Organization, the African Union, the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response as well as EU and U.S. representatives, the statement said.

Ebola has claimed over 8,400 lives, WHO reported on Wednesday. U.S. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon previously said the epidemic could be over by mid-2015 but WHO is now declining to set a specific timeline.

WHO says there are now enough beds to isolate and treat Ebola patients, but not all are in the hotspots where the disease is spreading fastest. The U.S. estimates that the number of scientists needed to track the outbreak must be tripled.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/guinea-to-open-all-schools-that-were-closed-during-ebola-outbreak-health-minister-says-situation-is-improving/feed/0stdIn this Monday, March 31, 2014 file photo health workers teach people about the Ebola virus and how to prevent infection, in Conakry, Guinea.While the world has been looking elsewhere, Boko Haram has carved out its own, brutal countryhttp://news.nationalpost.com/news/while-the-world-has-been-looking-elsewhere-boko-haram-has-carved-out-its-own-brutal-country
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You might not have noticed, but the world has acquired a new country. With its own capital, army and self-styled “emir,” this domain possesses some of the features of statehood. But don’t expect an application to join the United Nations: the consuming ambition of this realm is to reverse just about every facet of human progress achieved over the past millennium.

Boko Haram, the radical Islamists responsible for enslaving the Chibok schoolgirls and killing hundreds of people in the past week alone, have carved out a heartland in the plains of northern Nigeria.

Every insurgency tries to graduate from launching hit-and-run attacks to controlling territory. Boko Haram has now crossed this vital threshold. Scores of towns and villages have fallen into the hands of its gunmen across the states of Borno and Yobe. Today, Boko Haram rules a domain the size of Belgium with a surface area of about 32,000 square kilometers and a population of at least 1.7 million people. The capital, incidentally, is a town called Gwoza. The terrorist state’s army comprises Boko Haram’s fearsomely well-equipped insurgents and the “emir” is a maniacal figure called Abubakar Shekau.

For the second time in less than three years, an African government has been sufficiently absent-minded to lose a swathe of its country. Ever since the attacks on September 11, a central goal of Western counter-terrorism policy has been to prevent al-Qaida or its allies from controlling territory. But, somehow, it keeps happening – over and over again.

Back in 2012, al-Qaida’s affiliate in North Africa managed to take over two thirds of Mali, achieving mastery over an area three times the size of Britain. France’s brilliantly executed intervention broke al-Qaida’s grip on that domain in 2013, but there is no prospect of Boko Haram being similarly defeated in Nigeria.

As Shekau proclaims the birth of his new African “Caliphate” – to go with the similar creation of Islamic State (ISIL or ISIS) in the Middle East – three questions arise: How did it come to this? How dangerous is the world’s newest country? And, most vitally of all, what is to be done?

The first question is easiest to answer: Boko Haram achieved its advances because of the corruption and incompetence of the Nigerian state. Now that a string of towns has fallen, the failure of the country’s army to stand up to the insurgents is glaring. Partly, that is explained by the fact that the Nigerian armed forces are relatively small: the army has only 62,000 soldiers to defend a country four times bigger than Britain, with no fewer than 180 million people.

But that is not the sole reason for the failure. Instead of spending their generous security budget – almost $8 billion in 2014 – on proper weapons and equipment, Nigerian generals tend to pocket the money themselves or blow it on showpiece helicopters that attract generous commissions but are of precious little use against Boko Haram.

The result is that the beleaguered 7th Division, which has primary responsibility for fighting Boko Haram, confines itself to mounting a static defence of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Back in 2013, the Islamists managed to destroy most of this unit’s helicopters. Lacking the means to wage a mobile war and crippled by a venal and inept leadership, the 7th Division has made no serious effort to recapture territory from Boko Haram.

As for the dangers posed by the birth of Boko Haram-land, the immediate threat is that the new state will become a base for more conquests. That has already happened, with the town of Baga falling last Wednesday and the Islamists launching regular raids over the border into neighbouring Cameroon.

Does this pose a wider peril, stretching beyond West Africa? At the moment, the answer is probably not. Boko Haram shares the anti-Western fanaticism of al-Qaida, but the insurgency stubbornly fails to conform to neat categories. Even its name is not what it seems. Boko Haram is generally taken to mean “Western education is banned,” but “Boko” means book in the Hausa language, so “books are banned” would be a more accurate translation. By implying that their campaign is motivated by an objection to “Western education,” we risk allowing Boko Haram to appear less atavistic than they actually are.

HandoutsJust in time for the 11 a.m. news conference! (see text below)

Around an Islamist core, the insurgents also consist of local criminals and, indeed, tribal insurgents from Shekau’s own Kanuri-speaking people. Whether these various strands have any interest in striking Western targets beyond Nigeria is open to question. But the lesson from the period of Taliban rule in Afghanistan in the 90’s is that even if that intention does not exist today, it will develop if enough time passes.

And that brings us to the question of what can be done? In the end, this is a problem that only Nigeria can solve, firstly by building its army into a force capable of recovering the lost territory.

The West can offer training, intelligence and advice. And America’s drone campaign in Pakistan has also demonstrated that a sophisticated effort to suppress terrorism can succeed even without a reliable force on the ground. If Boko Haram continue to advance – and if their atrocities continue – then northern Nigeria could be the next theatre for a drone offensive.

The alternative may be to watch the steady expansion of Africa’s newest country.

YOLA, Nigeria — Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested Friday is the “deadliest massacre” in the history of Boko Haram.

Mike Omeri, the government spokesman on the insurgency, said fighting continued Friday for Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on Jan. 3 and attacked again on Wednesday.

“Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted airstrikes against militant targets,” Omeri said in a statement.

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

“The human carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in Baga was enormous,” Muhammad Abba Gava, a spokesman for poorly armed civilians in a defense group that fights Boko Haram, told The Associated Press.

He said the civilian fighters gave up on trying to count all the bodies. “No one could attend to the corpses and even the seriously injured ones who may have died by now,” Gava said.

In Washington, U.S. State Department Spokesman Jen Psaki condemned the attacks.

“We urge Nigeria and its neighbors to take all possible steps to address the urgent threat of Boko Haram. Even in the face of these horrifying attacks, terrorist organizations like Boko Haram must not distract Nigeria from carrying out credible and peaceful elections that reflect the will of the Nigerian people,” Psaki said in a statement.

The previous bloodiest day in the uprising involved soldiers gunning down unarmed detainees freed in a March 14, 2014, attack on Giwa military barracks in Maiduguri city. Amnesty said then that satellite imagery indicated more than 600 people were killed that day.

The 5-year insurgency killed more than 10,000 people last year alone, according to the Washington-based Council on Foreign Relations. More than a million people are displaced inside Nigeria and hundreds of thousands have fled across its borders into Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.

Emergency workers said this week they are having a hard time coping with scores of children separated from their parents in the chaos of Boko Haram’s increasingly frequent and deadly attacks.

Just seven children have been reunited with parents in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where about 140 others have no idea if their families are alive or dead, said Sa’ad Bello, the coordinator of five refugee camps in Yola.

He said he was optimistic that more reunions will come as residents return to towns that the military has retaken from extremists in recent weeks.

Suleiman Dauda, 12, said he ran into the bushes with neighbors when extremists attacked his village, Askira Uba, near Yola last year.

“I saw them kill my father, they slaughtered him like a ram. And up until now I don’t know where my mother is,” he told The Associated Press at Daware refugee camp in Yola.

Umar reported from Bauchi, Nigeria. Associated Press writer Michelle Faul contributed to this story from Johannesburg.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com//too-many-bodies-to-count-deadliest-massacre-in-history-of-boko-haram-killed-thousands-amnesty-international-says/feed/0stdNIGERIA-UNREST-BORNO-FILESFamily of Canadian-Egyptian journalist who has been detained for more than year optimistic he may soon returnhttp://news.nationalpost.com//family-of-canadian-egyptian-journalist-who-has-been-detained-for-more-than-year-optimistic-he-may-soon-return
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Family and representatives of a Canadian-Egyptian journalist who has been detained in Egypt for more than a year said Tuesday they are optimistic he might soon be making a return to Canadian soil.

Mohamed Fahmy served as Cairo bureau chief for Al Jazeera English until his arrest, along with two colleagues, by Egyptian security forces in December 2013. Found guilty on charges related to supporting the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Mr. Fahmy was sentenced to seven years in prison, but a retrial was ordered last week.

On Tuesday, Mr. Fahmy’s fiancée said he may not face a second trial — the family has been told a deportation process is nearing an end.

“We have submitted the deportation application and the Fahmy family met with a senior government official who confirmed the process is in its final stages,” Marwa Omara told The Canadian Press in an email sent from Cairo.

Recent steps to secure the transfer of Mr. Fahmy to Canada have come following a November decree which enables Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to deport foreign defendants who have been accused or convicted of crimes under Egyptian law.

Lawyers for Mr. Fahmy submitted an initial request for deportation in December, but Mr. Fahmy’s family had not received a response until this week.

Members of Mr. Fahmy’s legal team — which includes high-profile human rights lawyer Amal Clooney and Mark Wassouf in the U.K., and Lorne Waldman in Canada — expressed cautious confidence when asked about Mr. Fahmy’s application for deportation.

“We are optimistic,” said Mr. Wassouf, a barrister with Doughty Street Chambers in London England. “It seems like things are moving in the right direction, but there are still details to be agreed, and to make sure that what happens, happens on the right terms.”

Mr. Waldman, Mr. Fahmy’s Canadian lawyer, confirmed via email that the application for deportation is in the “final stages of processing.”

“I am hopeful that Mr. Fahmy will be deported soon, but of course there is nothing concrete yet,” he said.

Mr. Fahmy’s legal representatives are hoping to meet with John Baird, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister, prior to his planned visit to Egypt later this month.

“Amal Clooney and myself are trying to meet Mr. Baird before the Cairo visit, but so far there has been no confirmation from Mr. Baird’s office,” Mr. Waldman said. “Ms. Clooney and I believe it is important for this discussion to take place so timing and terms of deportation or transfer are clarified.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs has not released a date for Mr. Baird’s visit to Cairo, but Ms. Omara said the family has been told he will arrive Jan. 15.

“The Canadian government is following up with the Egyptians here and hopefully [Mr. Baird’s] visit next week can expedite the process,” Ms. Omara said.

Responding to questions at an event in Toronto Tuesday, Mr. Baird said he was pleased Mr. Fahmy had won his appeal and that Canadian officials had been “working very closely at senior levels within the Egyptian government” on Mr. Fahmy’s case, which he described as being “in a critical phase.”

“Obviously we’re looking for Mr. Fahmy’s release and we’ll continue to engage, and use any vehicle to obtain that,” Mr. Baird said.

In an op-ed piece published Tuesday on the New York Times website, Mr. Fahmy said he and his two colleagues were arrested and held as part of a wider dispute between Egypt and Qatar.

“We three journalists had unwittingly been dragged into a cold war between Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain on one hand and Qatar and its allies, including Turkey, on the other,” he wrote.

“I would like to remind Mr. Sisi that in the war he is waging against the cancer of political Islam and its violent offspring, journalists are not enemies but allies.”

National Post with files from Stewart Bell and The Canadian Press

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com//family-of-canadian-egyptian-journalist-who-has-been-detained-for-more-than-year-optimistic-he-may-soon-return/feed/0stdMohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed, Peter GresteFuneral lays to rest family of woman who tried to escape, but went back to husband when she couldn’thttp://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/funeral-lays-to-rest-family-of-woman-who-tried-to-escape-but-went-back-to-husband-when-she-couldnt
http://news.nationalpost.com/toronto/funeral-lays-to-rest-family-of-woman-who-tried-to-escape-but-went-back-to-husband-when-she-couldnt#commentsSat, 06 Dec 2014 01:28:10 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=551897

The men carried Zain out last, the little boy’s body invisible inside the simple wooden box.

At the gravesite, they opened the lid. They turned his head. They left him facing Mecca and then, to the hum of muttered prayers, they lowered him into the ground.
When the men stepped away, they pulled the wooden planks from above the hole. In the dirt below, three caskets sat visible in a neat row, side by side by side.

Each was unadorned: just unfinished wood, with rope handles. On two of them, someone had written a large “H” in blue pen, to mark where the heads should go.
Friday, after a service at a Somali mosque in Etobicoke, Zahra Abdille and her two boys Zain, eight, and Faris, 13, were buried in the Beechwood Cemetery, off Jane Street just north of York University.

Police discovered the bodies inside their East York apartment last Saturday afternoon. Yusuf Abdille, Zahra’s husband and Zain and Faris’s father, was found dead the same day, his body splayed on the Don Valley Parkway.

All four deaths remain under investigation. Tam Bui, the homicide detective in charge of the case, observed Friday’s service from inside the mosque. Asked if he could offer an update, he said, quietly, “not today.”

Peter J. Thompson/National PostMourners place the coffins of Zhara Abdille and her children Faris, 13, and Zain, 8 at Vaughn's Beechwood Cemetery, Friday December 5, 2014. Abdille and her children were found dead in their apartment last Saturday in apparent murder suicide.

Still, in the days between the deaths and the funeral, a disquieting portrait of the Abdille family has emerged.

Last year, according to multiple reports, Ms. Abdille fled her husband and sought refuge at a women’s shelter in Scarborough. In court, she sought an emergency order granting her custody of her sons, but when she failed to get legal aid, she gave up and eventually went home.

At the gravesite Friday, Nur Qase, who described himself as a distant relative, said many people let the woman and her children down.

“This person came to the government, came to the authorities and said, ‘I need help,’ ” he said. “That’s where we failed.”

Sonia Berry, a close friend and colleague, said Ms. Abdille had long been afraid of her husband.

“I knew she was scared, but I don’t think she thought he would ever hurt the kids and that’s probably why she went back,” she told The Toronto Star.

“Everything she did was for her kids. She made the decisions based on what was best for her children — not herself.”

Ms. Abdille, who was born in Somalia, immigrated to Canada from Kenya. In Toronto, she trained as a public health nurse and eventually got a job with the City of Toronto.

Peter J. Thompson/National PostPeople arrive for the funeral of Zhara Abdille and her children Faris, 13, and Zain, 8 at Etobicoke's Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque, Friday December 5, 2014.

Mr. Qase said it took time for those in the community to reach her remaining family in Kenya and get permission to bury the bodies here. He could not say what would happen to Mr. Abdille’s body. He believed it remained in police custody.

Hours before the service began, Ms. Abdille’s colleagues arrived at Khalid Bin Al-Walid Mosque. The woman’s casket, open at the top, was placed halfway inside the door of the backroom, where the women sat for Friday prayers. At one point, a woman, a scarf covering her hair, approached and made the sign of the cross.

Speaking before the prayers, Sheik Aarij Anwer, the mosque’s director of education, compared the deaths of Ms. Abdille and her children to the trials of Moses and the Israelites in Egypt. He urged the hundreds of mourners — there were so many at one point they were spilling out the doors — to remember though this was a great trial, like all things, it came from their master.

Mr. Anwer added justice would come, if not in this life, then in the next.

Abdi Warsame didn’t know the family, but came to the funeral “to do his duty as a human being.”

“This affects a lot of families, a lot of people,” he said. “The first thing we want to do is protect our women, protect our children. They are the most vulnerable. I think as a society, in order to move forward, I think we need to learn from this horrific incident.”

At the gravesite, men and women lined up on opposite sides of the caskets — the women at the feet, the men at the head — and took turns shovelling dirt into the hole.

Ms. Abdille’s former colleagues stood in one corner, crying silently. From across the graveyard, the wails of another mourner could be heard.

“I’ve had a hard time being a husband this week, being a father,” one man said as he stared down at the three coffins below.

NAIROBI, Kenya — One gunman shot from the right, one from the left, each killing the non-Muslims lying in a line on the ground, growing closer and closer to Douglas Ochwodho, who was in the middle.

And then the shooting stopped. Apparently each gunman thought the other shot Ochwodho. He lay perfectly still until the 20 Islamic extremists left, and he appears to be the only survivor of those who had been selected for death.

Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels, Al-Shabab, attacked a bus in northern Kenya at dawn Saturday, singling out and killing 28 passengers who could not recite an Islamic creed and were assumed to be non-Muslims, Kenyan police said.

Those who could not say the Shahada, a tenet of the Muslim faith, were shot at close range, Ochwodho told The Associated Press.

Nineteen men and nine women were killed in the bus attack, said Kenyan police chief David Kimaiyo.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the killings through its radio station in Somalia saying it was in retaliation for raids by Kenyan security forces carried out earlier this week on four mosques at the Kenyan coast.

Kenya’s military said it responded to the killings with airstrikes later Saturday that destroyed the attackers’ camp in Somalia and killed 45 rebels.

The bus traveling to the capital Nairobi with 60 passengers was hijacked about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the town of Mandera near Kenya’s border with Somalia, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press.

The attackers first tried to wave the bus down but it didn’t stop so the gunmen sprayed it with bullets, said the police. When that didn’t work they shot a rocket propelled grenade at it, the officers said.

The gunmen took control of the vehicle and forced it off the road where they ordered all the passengers out of the vehicle and separated those who appeared to be non-Muslims- mostly non-Somalis- from the rest.

The survivor, Douglas Ochwodho, a non-Muslim head teacher of a private primary school in Mandera, said was travelling home for the Christmas vacation since school had closed.

Ochwodho told AP that the passengers who did not look Somali were separated from the others. The non-Somali passengers were then asked to recite the Shahada, an Islamic creed declaring oneness with God. Those who couldn’t recite the creed were ordered to lie down. Ochwodho was among those who had to lie on the ground.

Two gunmen started shooting those on the ground; one gunman started from the left and other from the right, Ochwodho said. When they reached him they were confused on whether either had shot him, he said.

Ochwodho lay still until the gunmen left, he said. He then ran back to the road and got a lift from a pick-up truck back to Mandera. He spoke from a hospital bed where he was being treated for shock.

Seventeen of the 28 dead were teachers, according to the police commander in Mandera County.

A shortage of personnel and lack of equipment led to a slow response by police when the information was received, said two police officers who insisted on anonymity because they were ordered not to speak to the press. They said the attackers have more sophisticated weaponry than the police who waited for military reinforcements before responding.

Kenya has been hit by a series of gun and bomb attacks blamed on al-Shabab, who are linked to al-Qaida, since it sent troops into Somalia in October 2011. Authorities say there have been at least 135 attacks by al-Shabab since then, including the assault on Nairobi’s upscale Westgate Mall in September 2013 in which 67 people were killed. Al-Shabab said it was responsible for other attacks on Kenya’s coast earlier this year which killed at least 90 people.

Al-Shabab is becoming “more entrenched and a graver threat to Kenya,” warned the International Crisis Group in a September report to mark the first anniversary of the Westgate attack. The report said that the Islamic extremists are taking advantage of longstanding grievances of Kenya’s Muslim community, such as official discrimination and marginalization.

Kenya has been struggling to contain growing extremism in the country. Earlier this week the authorities shut down four mosques at the Kenyan coast after police alleged they found explosives and a gun when they raided the places of worship.

Some Muslims believe the police planted the weapons to justify closing the mosques, Kheled Khalifa, a human rights official said Friday warning that methods being used to tackle extremism by government will increase support for radicals.

One person was killed during the raid on two of the mosques on Monday. Police said they shot dead a young man trying to hurl a grenade at them.

The government had previously said the four mosques were recruitment centres for al-Shabab.

SIERRA LEONE — It was mid-afternoon when our World Vision team arrived in the outskirts of Moyamba, a town in southern Sierra Leone. We were guided to a small house, surrounded by at least 100 people. A woman named Betty had lived in this house. Here, she had shared food, love and laughter with her two sons and extensive network of family members. And here, Betty had suffered and died after contracting Ebola.

World Vision workers had come to carry Betty’s body to its final resting place. I had come to photograph all the correct steps, so as to help educate other communities on ways to safely handle the bodies of those who died from the disease, and provide a dignified burial.

James, Betty’s teenage son, stared at me, teary-eyed but with a hypnotic intensity. I couldn’t tell what he thought of my presence here, at his mother’s funeral. In a culture where physical contact is paramount, I couldn’t even touch James’ arm to show him that I cared. And despite my good intentions, I could see that the heavy camera I carried was threatening.

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Feeling like an intruder at such a painful time was almost more than I could bear. I joined the burial team as they began doing their work. I know them and they know me, and I needed the distance away from the stares and quiet hostility of the family. I filmed the team’s precise preparation for burial, including the disinfection of the body and everything it had touched. I admire the team’s commitment to doing such a dangerous but absolutely necessary job. But while the act of filming removed my feeling of inadequacy, I continued to avoid looking at the grieving people standing nearby.

From a distance, I watched one of the workers spraying chlorine throughout the main room of Betty’s house. The too-familiar stench and acidity of the disinfectant is everywhere these days. As I watched, I realized that even such extreme, careful measures would mean little or nothing for Betty’s family. The fear of Ebola is so great that no one will ever inhabit the house again.

In a courageous act of compassion, an older woman came forward and held the sister as she grieved

I continued to photograph as the brief memorial ceremony took place … click, click, click. A local pastor, who had arrived with the team, began praying for Betty. As the family joined in, the silence broke as tears began to flow from many of those present, including me. The Lord’s Prayer has never been more intense and more meaningful than at this particular instant.

Through my viewfinder, my vision was limited to the sorrow and the pain of the family members. Then suddenly, I heard something. Betty’s youngest sister screamed and ran towards the body, calling out “Sister, my sister!” over and over again. Her face a mask of unbearable grief, she fell to the ground, clawing at the soil. My own tears flowed freely now. In a courageous act of compassion, an older woman came forward and held the sister as she grieved. At a time when all physical contact is discouraged, she gently helped lead Betty’s sister away from the body. Her cries continued “Sister, my sister!” for what seemed like an eternity.

The burial workers slowly carried the body to a pick-up truck, which transported it to a nearby burial ground. Betty was laid to rest among the others from the local community who had died from Ebola. She received the prayers and the dignity she deserved. It is all we can offer to the dead. In the meantime, we’ll continue our efforts, along with governments and countless other agencies, to help those still living in the shadow of Ebola.

National Post

Bruno Col is regional communications manager, West Africa, for World Vision International.

Race is the great cultural subject of our time. The literature of former colonies and mother countries is awash in reflection — angry, guilty, grieving, optimistic, pessimistic — on blacks and whites’ shared past, often ugly, never less than troubled. I have read novels by American, British and African writers that deal with race tensions in America, Britain and Africa. But Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah is something new, a literary panopticon: a novel that simultaneously expands the reader’s understanding, not only about relations between blacks and whites on all three continents, but also about relations amongst blacks on all three continents.

Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, was longlisted for the Booker prize. Her second, Half a Yellow Sun, won the prestigious Orange Prize. In this latest ambitious novel of sweeping social-realism breadth and illuminating psychological depth, a now-seasoned and authoritative Adichie seamlessly braids character and plot with themes of race, class and national cultures to produce an aesthetic masterpiece.

Americanah is the word Nigerians apply to one amongst them who has lived in America and then come home. The novel traces the adventures of Ifemelu and Obinze, high-achieving teenage schoolmates, who bond romantically over a dedication to “honesty” and intellectual reciprocity in a cultural climate where gendered conformity is more valued than critical thinking. Both are from aspirational homes (his of higher status), in which excellent English, academic degrees conferred by American and English universities and residency abroad are romanticized social capital.

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When an opportunity to attend an obscure Philadelphia college presents itself, Ifemelu seizes it with mixed eagerness and trepidation; later, Obinze makes his way to London. Both endure difficult episodes of deracination and grueling penury. Ifemelu, after a traumatic sexual incident that shames her into an abrupt rupture with Obinze, finally finds her feet, both job-wise (nanny to a wealthy family) and socially (rich, influential white boyfriend).

Ifemelu starts a cheeky but insightful blog about race in America, which finds a growing audience and even sponsorship. Modestly famous, her sojourn in America takes wing, capped by a fellowship to Princeton. In London, Obinze is unlucky; prospects for dignified work and elusive legal status dim, and he is ultimately “removed” from England on the cusp of a desperation sham marriage. Following his ignominious return to Lagos, though, he finds unexpectedly easy success and wealth as a land developer, and — having given up on Ifemelu — marriage to a beautiful and loving, but intellectually limited wife, whose dutiful conventionality bores him.

Much of the appeal of Americanah lies in the originality and precision of Adichie’s insights into cultural differences around race. Language is an important trope. At first, in Philadelphia, Ifemelu emulates an American accent. One day a telemarketer, apprised of her provenance, tells her, “You sound American” and she feels “a burgeoning shame” for having adopted “a way of being that was not hers”; soon after, symbolically, she reverts to her authentic accent.

Cornrows, Chinese weaves, afros big and small: black hair is a political and cultural signifier

Adichie is equally adept at conveying states of mind and cultural nuances through discussions about hair. Many black women, perhaps even more than white women, are obsessed with hair. “Relaxing,” cornrows, Chinese weaves, afros big and small: black hair is a political and cultural signifier. Getting her own hair “relaxed” evokes a feeling of “something organic dying” and a “sense of loss.” Impulsively adopting a small but authentic afro, Ifemelu finds self-respect: She “fell in love with her hair.” (When a white woman begs to touch it, she is happy to oblige, but her second boyfriend — black, academic — is furious. He’s politically correct; she’s non-ideological, spontaneous).

Ifemilu’s Nigerian circle always has scolded Ifemelu for her judgmentalism. But in fact, Ifemelu, like her creator, is simply a close, objective observer, who winkles out the foibles, double standards, self-righteousness and chauvinism of every group she finds herself amongst. But even negative observations are sheathed in affection and understanding for her subjects that take the sting out of her scrutiny. She is tough on conservatives who don’t “get” systemic racism, which she illustrates in numerous gemlike vignettes (“we don’t do curly eyebrows” says a covertly racist salon manager), but also on liberal whites who feel they must constantly reassure blacks of their race-blindness (proving their intense race-consciousness), and tough as well on the self-righteousness and utopianism of both white and black progressive academics.

At first, Ifemelu feels more connection with international students than American blacks — that is, with others who have not been historically oppressed. But solidarity with American blacks gels over Barack Obama, whose election makes her feel that “nothing was more beautiful to her than America.”

Now Ifemelu only feels comfortable socially with others who have lived abroad

After many years, however, although Ifemelu is grateful to have an American passport, since it “shielded her from choicelessness,” she reflects that if she is to have children, she wants them to grow up in Nigeria where, though nowadays observed more in the breach in England itself, the old British virtues of politeness, respect for elders and educational humility still apply. “I don’t want a child who feeds on praise and expects a star for effort and talks back to adults in the name of self-expression.”

Ifemelu’s homecoming provides some of the most fascinating social commentary in the book. To their friends who stayed home, Americanahs are “the sanctified, the returners, back home with an extra gleaming layer.” Now Ifemelu only feels comfortable socially with others who have lived abroad — they meet at the “Nigerpolitan Club” — with whom she can commiserate over Nigeria’s lack of American amenities like reliable air conditioning, vegetarian restaurants, fast Internet and NPR.

Ifemelu and Obinze rediscover each other and find they share the same impatience with their own culture: “Such a transactional city,” “Nigerians can be so obsequious,” “We have confidence but no dignity.” But home is where they belong. One day Ifemelu hears from her former white boyfriend, who asks if she is still blogging about race. She replies, “No, just about life. Race doesn’t really work here. I feel like I got off the plane in Lagos and stopped being black.” A luxury no American black is ever likely to possess.

On Nov. 20, the Cundill Prize in Historical Literature at McGill will be awarded to the author of a book “determined to have had (or likely to have) a profound literary, social and academic impact in the area of history.” This week and next, the National Post will be publishing excerpts from all six 2014 Cundill Prize finalists.

It is still the sea, obviously, but you can see that something has changed, something about the colour. The low, broad rollers rock the ship as benevolently as ever; there is still nothing but ocean, yet the blue is gradually becoming tainted with yellow. And that produces not green, the way you might remember from your lessons in colour theory, but murkiness. The glimmering azure has vanished. There is no more turquoise billow beneath the noonday sun. The boundless cobalt from which the sun arose, the ultramarine of twilight, the leaden grayness of the night: gone.

From here on, all is broth.

Yellowish, ochre, rusty broth. You are still hundreds of nautical miles from the coast, but you know: This is where the land starts. The force with which the Congo River empties into the Atlantic is so great that it changes the colour of the seawater for hundreds of kilometers around.

Once, aboard the old packet boats, this discolouration made the first-time traveller to Congo think he was almost there. But the crew and old hands soon made it clear to the greenhorn that it was still a two-day sail from here, days during which the newcomer would see the water grow ever browner, ever dirtier. Standing at the stern he could see the growing contrast with the blue ocean water that the propeller continued to lift up from deeper layers. After a time, clumps of grass would begin drifting by, chunks of sod, little islands that the river had spit out and that were now bobbing about dazedly at sea. Through the porthole of his cabin he perceived dismal shapes in the water, “chunks of wood and uprooted trees, pulled up long ago from darkened jungles, for the black trunks were leafless and the bare stumps of thick branches sometimes roiled at the surface for a moment, then dove again.”

The water becomes a yellowish, ochre, rusty broth. You are still hundreds of nautical miles from the coast, but you know land is close

In satellite images, one sees it clearly: a brownish stain that stretches out up to 800 km westward at the high point of the rainy season. It looks as though the dry land is leaking. Oceanographers speak of the “Congo fan” or the “Congo plume.” The first time I saw aerial photos of it, I couldn’t help but think of someone who slashes his wrists and holds them under water — but then eternally. The water of the Congo, the second longest river in Africa, actually sprays into the ocean. The rocky substrate keeps its mouth relatively narrow. Unlike the Nile, no peaceful maritime delta has arisen here; the enormous mass of water is forced out through a keyhole.

The ocher hue comes from the silt that the Congo collects during its 4,700- km-long journey: from the high springs in the extreme south of the country, through the arid savanna and the weed-choked swamps of Katanga, past the endless equatorial forest that covers almost the entire northern half of the country to the rugged landscapes of Bas-Congo and the spectral stands of mangrove at the river’s mouth. But the colour also comes from the hundreds of rivers and tributaries that together form the drainage basin of the Congo, an area of some 3.7 million square km, more than a tenth of all Africa, coinciding largely with the republic of the same name.

And all those tiny bits of earth, all those torn-off particles of clay and mud and sand go floating along, downstream, to wider waters. Sometimes they hang suspended in place and glide on imperceptibly, then roil in a wild raging that mixes the daylight with darkness and foam. Sometimes they get stuck. Against a rock. An embankment. Against a rusty wreck that howls silently up at the clouds and around which a sandbank has formed. Sometimes they encounter nothing, nothing at all, nothing but water, different water all the time, first fresh, then bracken, finally salt.

That is how a country begins: Far before the coastline, thinned down with lots and lots of seawater.

About 13.5-billion years ago, matter, energy, time and space came into being in what is known as the Big Bang. The story of these fundamental features of our universe is called physics.

About 300,000 years after their appearance, matter and energy started to coalesce into complex structures, called atoms, which then combined into molecules. The story of atoms, molecules and their interactions is called chemistry.

The Cognitive Revolution kick-started things for us 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up 12,000 years ago. And now the Scientific Revolution could end history as we know it

About 3.8-billion years ago, on a planet called Earth, certain molecules combined to form particularly large and intricate structures called organisms. The story of organisms is called biology.

About 70,000 years ago, organisms belonging to the species Homo sapiens started to form even more elaborate structures called cultures. The subsequent development of these human cultures is called history.

Three important revolutions shaped the course of history: the Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different. This book tells the story of how these three revolutions have affected humans and their fellow organisms.

There were humans long before there was history. Animals much like modern humans first appeared about 2.5 million years ago. But for countless generations, they did not stand out from the myriad other organisms with which they shared their habitats.

On a hike in East Africa 2-million years ago, you might well have encountered a familiar cast of human characters: anxious mothers cuddling their babies and clutches of carefree children playing in the mud; temperamental youths chafing against the dictates of society and weary elders who just wanted to be left in peace; chest-thumping machos trying to impress the local beauty and wise old matriarchs who already had seen it all. These archaic humans loved, played, formed close friendships and competed for status and power — but so did chimpanzees, baboons and elephants. There was nothing special about them. Nobody, least of all humans themselves, had any inkling that their descendants would one day walk on the moon, split the atom, fathom the genetic code and write history books. The most important thing to know about prehistoric humans is that they were insignificant animals with no more impact on their environment than gorillas, fireflies or jellyfish.

Biologists classify organisms into species. Animals are said to belong to the same species if they tend to mate with each other, giving birth to fertile offspring. Horses and donkeys have a recent common ancestor and share many physical traits. But they show little sexual interest in one another. They will mate if induced to do so — but their offspring, called mules, are sterile. Mutations in donkey DNA can therefore never cross over to horses, or vice versa. The two types of animals are consequently considered two distinct species, moving along separate evolutionary paths. By contrast, a bulldog and a spaniel may look very different, but they are members of the same species, sharing the same DNA pool. They will happily mate and their puppies will grow up to pair off with other dogs and produce more puppies.

Species that evolved from a common ancestor are bunched together under the heading “genus” (plural: genera). Lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars are different species within the genus Panthera. Biologists label organisms with a two-part Latin name, genus followed by species. Lions, for example, are called Panthera leo, the species leo of the genus Panthera. Presumably, everyone reading this book is a Homo sapiens — the species sapiens (wise) of the genus Homo (man).

Genera in their turn are grouped into families, such as the cats (lions, cheetahs, house cats), the dogs (wolves, foxes, jackals) and the elephants (elephants, mammoths, mastodons). All members of a family trace their lineage back to a founding matriarch or patriarch. All cats, for example, from the smallest house kitten to the most ferocious lion, share a common feline ancestor who lived about 25-million years ago.

When he was gunned down in Mexico Saturday, Thomas Gisby owned more than $2M in real estate. But a decade ago he filed for bankruptcy, claiming he had no choice after unfair tax assessments[caption id="attachment_167682" align="alignright" width="620" caption="Les Bazso/Postmedia News"]<img src="http://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/png0428nmexicokilling00071.jpg&quot; alt="" title="Chief Superintendent Dan Malo announces that Thomas Gisby was killed in Mexico at a press conference in Surrey Saturday." width="620" height="322" class="size-full wp-image-167682" />[/caption]
VANCOUVER — When he was gunned down in Mexico Saturday, B.C. native and crime boss Thomas Gisby was a wealthy man with real estate assets in the Lower Mainland valued at more than $2 million.
But a decade ago he filed for bankruptcy, claiming he had no choice after unfair tax assessments by the Canada Revenue Agency.
Police say Gisby was an international drug trafficker with cartel connections in both Mexico and Colombia that allowed him to rank at the highest level of Canadian organized crime.
But it likely was his association with a violent mid-level gang known as the Dhak-Duhre group that got Gisby gunned down at a Nuevo Vallarta Starbucks just after he ordered his morning coffee.
[np-related]
<div style="font-family:times;width:200px;float:right;text-align:center;color:#3366ff;font-weight:bold;margin:10px;padding:15px;font-size:25px;line-height:1.4em;">'If you are a gangster, you better be looking over your shoulder'
</div>
Supt. Tom McCluskie, head of the Gang Task Force, said Monday that police are bracing for possible retaliation and are hoping to stay a step ahead of the violence.
“Every time we have someone this high-profile killed, there is a spike in activity,” McCluskie said. “If you are a gangster, you better be looking over your shoulder.”
Gisby, 47, had dealt for years with the Hells Angels and other B.C. gangsters wanting to import drugs into the province.
But he claimed to be a failed businessman with no other option but bankruptcy in a 2004 affidavit filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
“My bankruptcy was caused by the sudden failure of my business accompanied by very large tax assessments made against (me) by the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency,” Gisby wrote in November 2004. “The assessments against me were based on CCRA’s presumptions that I had failed to account for income taxes payable by me over a number of years, which I deny.”
Police say Gisby was a masterful businessman when it came to the drug trade, handling delicate deals with volatile international brokers.
But in his affidavit, Gisby claimed: “I am a poor businessman and have very little education and have difficulties in maintaining records and so on. In other words, I have no head for business and I found the administration of my business to become ever more difficult and complicated as time went on.”
He said he was stuck “working part-time for various friends” and in a business run by his common-law wife called Illusions Sound Custom Car Audio Ltd.
“I am reluctant to seek full-time employment with anyone else because my experience has been that CCRA have had me under extensive surveillance and I do not want to cause difficulties for anyone who employs me,” Gisby said.
But Brian Fowles, then a collection officer with the CCRA, claimed in court documents that Gisby had been hiding his cash and was indebted to the federal government for almost $1.5 million for income earned between 1994 and 1999.
“My investigation leads me to conclude that there appear to be a number of matters amiss in (Gisby’s) financial affairs,” Fowles wrote.
<div style="font-family:times;width:200px;float:right;text-align:center;color:#3366ff;font-weight:bold;margin:10px;padding:15px;font-size:25px;line-height:1.4em;">'You make a lot of enemies getting to the top and those enemies don’t go away'
</div>
“CCRA is of the view that (Gisby) transferred under suspicious circumstances property with substantial values to his common-law spouse in the months and years leading up to his bankruptcy . . . CCRA is of the view that the statements and evidence provided by (Gisby) and his spouse are evasive, inconsistent and implausible.”
McCluskie said it is hard for police “to get to the guys at the top” in criminal cases because no one wants to co-operate with authorities.
“You make a lot of enemies getting to the top and those enemies don’t go away,” McCluskie said.
After his bankruptcy, Gisby bounced back, purchasing three condos since August 2010 in Vancouver’s trendy Yaletown and the Olympic Village for more than $2 million and a cabin near Lillooet, B.C., for $40,000.
Gisby was asked about how he could afford frequent trips to Mexico during his bankruptcy proceedings. He said his spouse bought the tickets and that he stayed for free with “friends.”
Asked for their names, he said: “Miquel, Mario and George,” refusing to provide surnames or addresses of any of them.
“They haven’t done nothing wrong, so you know, they’re friends, they’re good friends,” he said. “I go there, I stay, I relax, right? That’s what I do.”
<em>Postmedia News</em>

Homo sapiens, too, belongs to a family. This banal fact used to be one of history’s most closely guarded secrets. Homo sapiens long preferred to view itself as set apart from animals, an orphan bereft of family, lacking siblings or cousins, and most importantly, without parents. But that’s just not the case. Like it or not, we are members of a large and particularly noisy family called the great apes. Our closest living relatives include chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The chimpanzees are the closest. Just 6-million years ago, a single female ape had two daughters. One became the ancestor of all chimpanzees, the other is our own grandmother.

Homo sapiens has kept hidden an even more disturbing secret. Not only do we possess an abundance of uncivilized cousins, once upon a time we had quite a few brothers and sisters as well. We are used to thinking about ourselves as the only humans, because for the last 10,000 years, our species has indeed been the only human species around. Yet the real meaning of the word human is “an animal belonging to the genus Homo,” and there used to be many other species of this genus besides Homo sapiens. Moreover, as we shall see in the last chapter of the book, in the not so distant future we might again have to contend with non-sapiens humans. To clarify this point, I will often use the term “Sapiens” to denote members of the species Homo sapiens, while reserving the term “human” to refer to all extant members of the genus Homo.

Humans first evolved in East Africa about 2.5-million years ago from an earlier genus of apes called Australopithecus, which means “Southern Ape.” About 2-million years ago, some of these archaic men and women left their homeland to journey through and settle vast areas of North Africa, Europe and Asia. Since survival in the snowy forests of northern Europe required different traits than those needed to stay alive in Indonesia’s steaming jungles, human populations evolved in different directions. The result was several distinct species, to each of which scientists have assigned a pompous Latin name.

Humans in Europe and western Asia evolved into Homo neanderthalensis (“Man from the Neander Valley”), popularly referred to simply as “Neanderthals.” Neanderthals, bulkier and more muscular than us Sapiens, were well adapted to the cold climate of Ice Age western Eurasia. The more eastern regions of Asia were populated by Homo erectus, “Upright Man,” who survived there for close to 2-million years, making it the most durable human species ever. This record is unlikely to be broken even by our own species. It is doubtful whether Homo sapiens will still be around a thousand years from now, so 2-million years is really out of our league.

On the island of Java, in Indonesia, lived Homo soloensis, “Man from the Solo Valley,” who was suited to life in the tropics. On another Indonesian island — the small island of Flores — archaic humans underwent a process of dwarfing. Humans first reached Flores when the sea level was exceptionally low, and the island was easily accessible from the mainland. When the seas rose again, some people were trapped on the island, which was poor in resources. Big people, who need a lot of food, died first. Smaller fellows survived much better. Over the generations, the people of Flores became dwarves. This unique species, known by scientists as Homo floresiensis, reached a maximum height of only one metre and weighed no more than 25 kilograms. They were nevertheless able to produce stone tools, and even managed occasionally to hunt down some of the island’s elephants — though, to be fair, the elephants were a dwarf species as well.

In 2010, another lost sibling was rescued from oblivion, when scientists excavating the Denisova Cave in Siberia discovered a fossilised finger bone. Genetic analysis proved that the finger belonged to a previously unknown human species, which was named Homo denisova. Who knows how many lost relatives of ours are waiting to be discovered in other caves, on other islands, and in other climes?

While these humans were evolving in Europe and Asia, evolution in East Africa did not stop. The cradle of humanity continued to nurture numerous new species, such as Homo rudolfensis, “Man from Lake Rudolf,” Homo ergaster, “Working Man,” and eventually our own species, which we’ve immodestly named Homo sapiens, “Wise Man.”

The members of some of these species were massive and others were dwarves. Some were fearsome hunters and others meek plant-gatherers. Some lived only on a single island, while many roamed over continents. But all of them belonged to the genus Homo. They were all human beings.

The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man. It’s our current exclusivity, not that multi-species past, that is peculiar – and perhaps incriminating

It’s a common fallacy to envision these species as arranged in a straight line of descent, with Ergaster begetting Erectus, Erectus begetting the Neanderthals, and the Neanderthals evolving into us. This linear model gives the mistaken impression that at any particular moment only one type of human inhabited the earth, and that all earlier species were merely older models of ourselves. The truth is that from about 2-million years ago until around 10,000 years ago, the world was home, at one and the same time, to several human species. And why not? Today there are many species of foxes, bears and pigs. The earth of a hundred millennia ago was walked by at least six different species of man. It’s our current exclusivity, not that multi-species past, that is peculiar – and perhaps incriminating. As we will shortly see, we Sapiens have good reasons to repress the memory of our siblings.

Despite their many differences, all human species share several defining characteristics. Most notably, humans have extraordinarily large brains compared to other animals. Mammals weighing 60 kilograms have an average brain size of 200 cubic centimetres. The earliest men and women, 2.5-million years ago, had brains of about 600 cubic centimetres. Modern Sapiens sport a brain averaging 1,200–1,400 cubic centimetres. Neanderthal brains were even bigger.

That evolution should select for larger brains may seem to us like, well, a no-brainer. We are so enamoured of our high intelligence that we assume that when it comes to cerebral power, more must be better. But if that were the case, the feline family would also have produced cats who could do calculus. Why is genus Homo the only one in the entire animal kingdom to have come up with such massive thinking machines?

The fact is that a jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It’s not easy to carry around, especially when encased inside a massive skull. It’s even harder to fuel. In Homo sapiens, the brain accounts for about 2% to 3% of total body weight, but it consumes 25 per cent of the body’s energy when the body is at rest. By comparison, the brains of other apes require only 8% of rest-time energy. Archaic humans paid for their large brains in two ways. Firstly, they spent more time in search of food. Secondly, their muscles atrophied. Like a government diverting money from defence to education, humans diverted energy from biceps to neurons. It’s hardly a foregone conclusion that this is a good strategy for survival on the savannah. A chimpanzee can’t win an argument with a Homo sapiens, but the ape can rip the man apart like a rag doll.

Today, our big brains pay off nicely, because we can produce cars and guns that enable us to move much faster than chimps, and shoot them from a safe distance instead of wrestling. But cars and guns are a recent phenomenon. For more than 2-million years, human neural networks kept growing and growing, but apart from some flint knives and pointed sticks, humans had precious little to show for it. What then drove forward the evolution of the massive human brain during those 2 million years? Frankly, we don’t know.

Another singular human trait is that we walk upright on two legs. Standing up, it’s easier to scan the savannah for game or enemies, and arms that are unnecessary for locomotion are freed for other purposes, like throwing stones or signaling. The more things these hands could do, the more successful their owners were, so evolutionary pressure brought about an increasing concentration of nerves and finely tuned muscles in the palms and fingers. As a result, humans can perform very intricate tasks with their hands. In particular, they can produce and use sophisticated tools. The first evidence for tool production dates from about 2.5-million years ago, and the manufacture and use of tools are the criteria by which archaeologists recognize ancient humans.

Yet walking upright has its downside. The skeleton of our primate ancestors developed for millions of years to support a creature that walked on all fours and had a relatively small head. Adjusting to an upright position was quite a challenge, especially when the scaffolding had to support an extra-large cranium. Humankind paid for its lofty vision and industrious hands with backaches and stiff necks.

Women paid extra. An upright gait required narrower hips, constricting the birth canal – and this just when babies’ heads were getting bigger and bigger. Death in childbirth became a major hazard for human females. Women who gave birth earlier, when the infant’s brain and head were still relatively small and supple, fared better and lived to have more children. Natural selection consequently favoured earlier births. And, indeed, compared to other animals, humans are born prematurely, when many of their vital systems are still under-developed. A colt can trot shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance, protection and education.

This fact has contributed greatly both to humankind’s extraordinary social abilities and to its unique social problems. Lone mothers could hardly forage enough food for their offspring and themselves with needy children in tow. Raising children required constant help from other family members and neighbours. It takes a tribe to raise a human. Evolution thus favoured those capable of forming strong social ties. In addition, since humans are born underdeveloped, they can be educated and socialized to a far greater extent than any other animal. Most mammals emerge from the womb like glazed earthenware emerging from a kiln — any attempt at remoulding will scratch or break them. Humans emerge from the womb like molten glass from a furnace. They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a surprising degree of freedom.

This is why today we can educate our children to become Christian or Buddhist, capitalist or socialist, warlike or peace-loving.

While Canada appears unwilling to approve the temporary resident permit of an adopted baby from Ebola-stricken Sierra Leone, the British government has now declared it is ready to “accept” her, says the girl’s Quebec father.

Claude Perras, who in addition to being a Canadian citizen is a U.K. resident from his past work with a London mining company, wrote to the British government last week to ask about a visa for Ella, his 17-month-old adopted daughter, after growing frustrated with two visa rejections by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC).

“I am so discouraged and was wondering if you think it would be possible to get [Ella] a visitor visa to the U.K.,” Mr. Perras wrote to Peter Scott, regional operations manager, U.K. visas and immigration, for the British High Commission in Accra, Ghana.

“As a U.K. resident, I do not need a visa and this would allow me to process her Canadian visa in the U.K. and avoid the ban” by Canada on visas from West Africa.

On Wednesday, Mr. Scott responded with an open offer to Mr. Perras.

“I can advise you that the U.K. Visa Application Centre in Freetown [Sierra Leone] is open and will accept your daughter’s visit application should you decide for her to apply,” he wrote in the email, obtained by the Montreal Gazette.

On Friday, Chris Alexander, the federal immigration minister, announced Canada was suspending all visa applications from West Africa.

Kevin Menard, his press secretary, says the decision is intended to “protect the health and safety of Canadians, and doing anything we can to keep Ebola from coming to Canada.”

Related

However, many public health officials have condemned the move as ill-conceived, politically motivated, discriminatory and ineffective.

Steven J. Hoffman, an assistant professor of law at the University of Ottawa and an expert on global health, said “it’s tragic and unnecessary” Canada appears unwilling to allow Ella into the country.

“We’re seeing that a man is not able to bring his baby back to Canada because of visa restrictions which have no basis in science or public health,” he added.

“The international health regulations do not allow countries to impose illogical travel or trade restrictions unless they are supported by science, public health or a recommendation from the World Health Organization.”

Last week, Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO, questioned the wisdom of a similar visa ban by Australia.

HandoutElla, the one year old adopted daughter of Claude Perras in Sierra Leone.

Mr. Hoffman noted Canada’s hypocrisy in leading the charge to ease visa bans imposed by foreign governments during the SARS outbreak in Toronto in 2003, yet declaring a travel ban from West Africa during its Ebola epidemic.

A judge granted Mr. Perras’s adoption of Ella on July 2. Although the Secrétariat à l’adoption internationale, a Quebec government agency, has recognized the adoption as legitimate, Mr. Perras said CIC has twice rejected his visa requests.

On Oct. 2, he filed for a temporary resident permit for Ella on humanitarian grounds — a process that usually takes up to 12 days — but hasn’t heard a word from Ottawa.

“I am feeling totally let down by my own government,” said Mr. Perras, who is still holding out hope to come to Canada, especially since he has job interviews lined up in Quebec.

Bill Brown, a media relations officer for CIC, denied in a statement Mr. Perras’s case has anything to do with Ottawa’s ban on visas from West Africa.

He acknowledged the first stage of Ella’s adoption “has been completed,” but said there are still conditions that must be met.

One of those conditions is that Mr. Perras live continuously with Ella for at least six months in Sierra Leone — which is in the midst of an unprecedented epidemic.

“We understand that Mr. Perras is concerned about the child, but the government of Canada will not compromise the integrity of the immigration process, especially when it comes to the adoption of a child,” Mr. Brown wrote.